Can the Devil Live in God’s Paradise?

They Smile, They Sing the Anthem, Then They Steal Your Money

The Philippines is paradise. It has over 7,000 islands. It has beaches that look unreal. It has mountains, forests, rice terraces, and coral reefs. It has a culture that is warm, resilient, and full of life. It sits in Southeast Asia but it feels like a world of its own, somewhat apart from its neighbors, like it exists in its own corner of beauty and struggle.

But inside this paradise, there are devils.

They do not have horns. They do not wear capes. They wear barong Tagalog and formal suits. They wear baro at saya. They look like any Filipino. They smile at crowds. They hold babies during campaign season. They put their right hand over their heart when the national anthem plays. They watch the animated national heroes on the screen and they smile. They look like they love this country.

They do not love this country.

They love the money inside it.

These are the politicians who steal from the people. They are the officials who take a cut from every government project. A road project gets 30 percent skimmed off the top before a single shovel hits the ground. A school building fund gets sliced before one brick is laid. A hospital budget gets carved up before one medicine reaches the shelf.

The result is not just bad roads. The result is children dying. The result is a province that floods every year because the drainage project was never built properly because the budget was eaten. The result is a mother giving birth in a public hospital where she shares a bed with two or four other mothers because there are no beds left because there is no budget left because someone took it.

The result is a sick patient who cannot get medicine. The result is a newborn who starts life in a broken system made that way on purpose by people who are supposed to protect it.

This is not new. It started during the Spanish colonial period. Spain sent officials to the Philippines. Many of them were sent far from Spain precisely because they were greedy and corrupt and Spain wanted them out of sight. They came here. They ran offices. They collected taxes. They kept money. The habit became a system. The system became a culture. The culture became a dynasty.

That is the word. Dynasty. These politicians do not just steal for themselves. They steal for their children. They steal for their grandchildren. They teach their children how to run for office. They teach them how to smile at cameras. They teach them how to stand in front of the flag. They teach them how to talk about the poor while taking from the poor.

Their children grow up watching this. Their children think this is normal. Some of them believe they deserve it. Some of them know it is wrong and do it anyway. The family becomes a political brand. The name on the ballot is the same name as the father, the grandfather, the grandmother before them. The voter sees the name and thinks of familiarity. The politician sees the voter and thinks of a source of continued power.

This is the cycle.

They also put their faces on things. When the government builds a road, the face of the local official goes on the sign. When the government sends relief goods, the face of the congressman is on the packaging. When the government gives financial aid, the name of the governor is printed on the envelope. The money is public money. The face is private. The credit is stolen just like the budget.

They smile at you. They give speeches. They use the word “service.” They use the word “people.” They use the word “nation.” They know all the right words. They learned them in the same schools the country built with public money. They use those words to cover a simple truth: they are there for themselves and for their bloodline.

This is the devil in paradise.

Not a monster with a tail. A man or a woman in a nice suit, standing in front of a flag, singing the national anthem, thinking about which project to skim from next.

The Philippines deserves better than this. The people who work and pay taxes and suffer through floods and sit in broken hospitals and send their children to under-funded schools deserve better than this.

The paradise is real. The devil inside it is also real. The first step is seeing that clearly.